Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing

by Didier Fassin

Most incidents of urban unrest in recent decades - including the riots in France, Britain and other Western countries - have followed lethal interactions between the youth and the police. Usually these take place in disadvantaged neighborhoods composed of working-class families of immigrant origin or belonging to ethnic minorities. These tragic events have received a great deal of media coverage, but we know very little about the everyday activities of urban policing that lie behind them. Over the course of 15 months, at the time of the 2005 riots, Didier Fassin carried out an ethnographic study in one of the largest precincts in the Paris region, sharing the life of a police station and cruising with the patrols, in particular the dreaded anti-crime squads. Far from the imaginary worlds created by television series and action movies, he uncovers the ordinary aspects of law enforcement, characterized by inactivity and boredom, by eventless days and nights where minor infractions give rise to spectacular displays of force and where officers express doubts about the significance and value of their own jobs. Describing the invisible manifestations of violence and unrecognized forms of discrimination against minority youngsters, undocumented immigrants and Roma people, he analyses the conditions that make them possible and tolerable, including entrenched policies of segregation and stigmatization, economic marginalization and racial discrimination. Richly documented and compellingly told, this unique account of contemporary urban policing shows that, instead of enforcing the law, the police are engaged in the task of enforcing an unequal social order in the name of public security.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Ethnography, Academic, Social Science

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Didier Fassin is a French anthropologist and sociologist. He is currently the James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and holds a Direction of Studies in Political and Moral Anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book written on contemporary France, and one of the best books on policing in general. This is a gorgeous book. Beautifully written, sensitively analyzed, compassionate and passionate ethnography of the policing of minority communities in France, but relevant to all interested in racial inequality and police violence.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible exploration of contemporary policing in the urban context. Fassin draws from a large amount of experience conducted ethnographic research with police in the Parisian banlieue (suburbs). He analyses both the culture of the police, as well as their relationship with the people whom they are supposed to be protecting and serving. Most of the French police are working class from outside Paris, and the banlieue are populated mostly by ethnic minorities. This creates a dynamic in which the police see themselves as the front-line in a 'war' on criminal immigrants. Although the police see themselves as the ones protecting society at large from the criminals, they are really provoking more problems than they are able to solve. At the same time, they serve merely as a tool of the state to impose social order - at the bottom of which are those of North or Sub-Saharan African identity. The book speaks to the futility of 'stop and search' techniques, as well as patrol-based policing. Further, it lays clearly the means in which policing can be both racist (holding a lesser view of the other) as well as discriminating (racial profiling, since it is more likely to result in an arrest).

[Rosie La tierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing ethnography written by an anthropologist/sociologist on the police force that patrols a low income neighborhood in France. One of the best books I have read in awhile.

[Sésame · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai trouvé ce livre assez exemplaire dans plusieurs dimensions :
- l'effort d'accessibilité de la démarche d'anthropologue de l'auteur : Tout le premier chapitre où Didier Fassin prend le temps de poser le contexte de son enquête, les choix de postures qu'il a fait ou auxquels il a été contraint, le cadre et les limites de sa recherche, etc est passionnant et permet vraiment de mieux comprendre certains passages du livre que j'aurai pu percevoir comme des limites sans cela. Comme j'adore en plus l'anthropologie c'est vraiment plaisant de comprendre comment il a aborder le sujet.
- la rigueur de la démonstration : Alors que sur un sujet aussi brûlant et avec tant d'éléments qui donnent la rage il aurait pu céder à un ton beaucoup plus militant, il se tient tout le long du livre à sa position de chercheur, explore toutes les pistes d'explications possible même quand la raison semble évidente, etc. Ça peut peut-être être vécu parfois comme une approche un peu tiède, mais j'ai l'impression que c'est ce qui fait la force du livre qui est difficilement attaquable du coup.
- la force du récit par le quotidien et le banal : L'auteur s'attache à décrire non pas des moments d'éclats révélateurs mais plutôt le quotidien de la BAC et toutes les banalités qui nous en disent en fait beaucoup sur son fonctionnement.

Bref je trouve que c'est vraiment un bon livre pour rentrer dans le sujet de la police et de sa nécessaire abolition, à poursuivre sans doute ensuite avec des ouvrages avec une approche plus ouvertement militante comme ceux de Rigouste.

[Louna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lu progressivement pour absorber la densité analytique mais aussi émotionnelle de l'ouvrage, qui nous entraîne dans une ethnographie participante brillamment menée dans une BAC de la région parisienne. L'argumentaire est clair et méthodique, même si parfois cette exigence de méthode (historiquement située dans le contexte universitaire et politique des années 2000 en France, je l'entends bien) conduit l'auteur à être à mon avis un peu prudent sur certaines conclusions (je pense notamment au chapitre sur les discriminations). A contrario, les chapitres portant sur les interactions, la politique et la morale sont particulièrement brillants et fournissent des clés indispensables à la discussion, brûlante d'actualité. De manière générale, les scènes décrites sont révélatrices d'un quotidien des BAC bien différent de celui de l'imaginaire guerrier défendu par le pouvoir politique : l'ennui ordinaire, les longues plages d'attente, qui renforcent la brutalité morale et physique des policiers qui, soumis à la politique du chiffre alors que la criminalité et la délinquance baissent, et nourris par cet imaginaire fasciste et néocolonial, interpellent au hasard ceux qu'ils appellent des "batards" et permettent ainsi la reproduction de l'ordre social.

[Mimou Lemsikine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didier Fassin écrit un livre sur la police, ses dérives institutionnelles, son racisme …. Mais ne sait visiblement pas parler de race. Or quand on traite de faits aussi symptomatiques des processus de racialisation à l’œuvre en France, on use de sa réflexivité dans la manipulation des catégories raciales, on les met en problématique…. Bref c’est un livre qui parvient à répondre à sa question initiale, seulement je doute de la pertinence de cette question elle-même. Il est aussi ahurissant de voir que le sociologue sur son terrain - aussi scientifique que producteur d’un discours profondément politique - ne soit pas intervenu face au nombre incalculable de pratiques illégales menées par les forces de l’ordre envers les personnes qu’elles interpellent. S’il est vrai que risquer de voir l’accès à son terrain se réduire en raison d’une prise de position frontale avec les sujets enquêtés compromet la rigueur académique, je trouve tout de même ironique que Fassin assume qu’il s’est montré impartial durant l’enquête alors même qu’il introduit son ouvrage en parlant du racisme que la police a fait subir à son propre fils.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a hard time rating books that I must read for class. My enjoyment of such works are impacted by the forced nature of my reading. Regardless, Fassin's ethnography was quite engaging. I am able to draw parallels from the setting in Paris to the police work in the United States. I will likely be referring to this book in the future.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this for my anthropology of the state course at uni and its very enlightening. It's fairly good to read, some bits I had to read twice to understand but it was mainly smooth sailing. It's a really interesting subject. And especially with everything going on right now (with the black lives matter movements and talk about police brutality in America) its interesting to read. It explains the reasoning behind the brute anticrime squads in the Banlieues and why they use the amount of violence that they do.
I recommend reading this book a lot!

[Soraninn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable dans son domaine, accessible et très éclairant. Lecture importante par les temps qui courent pour aider à se poser les bonnes questions concernant les forces de l'ordre et leurs dysfonctionnements structurels, politiques et professionnels.

[Alex Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone with an opinion on the state of policing in society today as well as the role of police and its relationship to the state. Very well written and informative.

[Matthew Petti · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pretty unique work of ethnography. Fassin is an anthropologist who embeds with an "anti-crime squad," a plainclothes rapid-response unit in a rough part of Paris, in the tense months leading up to the 2006 youth riots. He documents how a lot of the relationship between the police and the youth is driven by a core contradiction in law enforcement.

Culturally, police expect and are expected to lead an action-hero life, catching criminal gangs in the act. But practically, police work means a lot of mundane maintenance of order, dealing with nuisance calls and showing the everyday presence of the State. As a result, police often seek out opportunities to aggressively assert their authority and behave like a hostile occupying force towards the local population.

This dynamic is particularly acute in the anti-crime squads, which are dominated by right-wing politics that *do* view the masses of black and Arab youth in France as a hostile population. Fassin coins the term "paramilitarization" to describe police units acting like a political militia, and in many ways, it anticipates the descent of America's own Department of Homeland Security and ICE into a de-professionalized force.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I think it is important to talk about the role of police in society, this book was maybe not the best book to start with. It is, after all, an ethnography that isn't written for the general public: it is very long and the length of chapters and paragraphs can be discouraging. The parts I did enjoy, though, are the narratives that describe the encounters of police with people, mainly from the projects. It makes you realize how much this system needs changing.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fassin dives into an ethnography of French policing. Perhaps he makes an affective move of highlighting the banality of patrolling through the style of his text--I wish there were more on the relation between the police and the populace.

[Stefan Lischewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best ethnographies I read so far.